


Our Hearts Beat Time Out

by zanzibar



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Established Relationship, John Tavares is a middle school science teacher, M/M, Samwise the brave
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-29
Updated: 2013-08-29
Packaged: 2017-12-25 00:01:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,081
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/946271
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zanzibar/pseuds/zanzibar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Somewhere in the living room Sam’s phone has finally given up and vibrated itself to an early grave and John’s phone is in the pocket of his favorite jeans, thrown haphazardly over the back of the couch, turned off.</p><p>In which unexpected things don't happen to Sam, until they do.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Our Hearts Beat Time Out

**Author's Note:**

> I need a keeper.
> 
> I have no idea if either of these things is going to happen. The smart money is probably on 50% happening and 50% being vicious internet rumor. Except I think maybe both of these things might happen.
> 
> Title ganked from Wolf Parade ~ Shine a Light.

Sam would never call his life unexpected. Exactly.

If the media is to be believed Sam has known John since the beginning of time. 

The reality isn’t far off of that belief.

When the world describes John they use words like exceptionally talented, and mature for his age, words like strong leader and the face of the franchise.

When Sam describes John the words are easier, best friend, oldest friend, boyfriend. 

The words Sam uses to describe John aren’t the words you use to describe the person you’re having super hot, super secret sex with. Especially not the person you’ve been having super secret hot sex with since you were 17.

He doesn’t say that he loves to slide his lips against the soft spot behind John’s ear, that he loves that John’s ears stick out just like his do. He doesn’t say that his favorite nights are the nights they fall asleep between one kiss and the next, exhausted from the gym and from skating, but too selfish to believe that they have time enough for all they want.

That doesn’t make any of those words any less true.

When Horc gets traded it’s expected, like January snow in Edmonton and puck shaped bruises and Taylor and Jordan sneaking away to make out at inappropriate times. These are things Sam feels like he’s always standing on the edge of, always just waiting for that one tiny gust of wind to push from expectation to reality.

Mark leaving New York is somehow manages to be more complex but happen much faster. On one hand John has know it’s coming, the Islanders haven’t made a secret of their plans for the future. But when push comes to shove John isn’t sure if he’s supposed to expect Mark to leave or expect him to stay. But all of that is rendered moot long before the Oilers situation is resolved. 

Horc goes to Dallas and Sam isn’t sure what to think. He has a place in his heart for Dallas, from years ago when it was home and that place grows a little because Shawn has always been someone Sam looks up to. And if he’s being honest, from the minute Shawn walked out of the dressing room Sam’s felt just a little adrift.

Sam and John are both back home by the time the news starts to break, John trying to escape the fog of a lost series and Sam trying to escape the fog of another year of achingly unrealized expectations.

But Sam’s dad reminds them time and time again that the NHL is a grown-ups game, a game played on the ice, but made eternally more complex by being played away from the ice by old men in ties and bloggers behind anonymous computer screens as well.

The only thing guaranteed in the life of a hockey player is change. Coaches and teammates come and go, they accept new roles and new challenges. Goalie pads shrink and grow, the puck over the glass is a penalty, the puck over the glass isn’t a penalty. But for all the change, the rhythm of the game stays the same. They workout slowly at the beginning, never stretching too far in those first weeks in the gym, they pile into Sam’s childhood bedroom, in a house that sits empty most of the year now.

They fall into each other. This rhythm as familiar as a summer of working out. Relearning each other’s bodies, seeking out new scars and the stories behind them, catching up on the minutiae that a stolen day here and there during the season and an avalanche of text messages simply can’t contain.

They don’t talk about hockey, except that it seems that hockey has a way of sliding into the conversation no matter what.

There are a lot of things that people say, guys say, in interviews and to reporters, about captains. But the truth is this, for every time someone says that it doesn’t take a letter on your sweater to be leader in the room, the actual truth is, no matter what anyone says the letter means something. 

There is basically zero traction on the idea of Sam Gagner, C14, Edmonton Oilers.

There is considerably more traction on the idea of John Tavares, C14, New York Islanders.

Mark goes to the Flyers on June 12. The articles anointing John start on June 11.

Shawn goes to Dallas on the 4th of July. The debate it seems is mainly whether or not Hallsy is ready to bear the C.

Sam tries not to feel like it’s appropriate that Shawn leaves under a shower of fireworks.

It sits like weight on John’s shoulders. Unrealized expectations. Unmanifested realities. On the ice he’s always been the hardest working guy Sam’s ever known. When they’re working out he’s still the most intense person in the weight room. But in between he’s a hundred things, a thousand things more than the next generation of hockey robots. He’s the person who lives in the biggest urban jungle on earth and PVR’s TV shows about gold mining in remote places in Africa and shows about surviving in the desolate tundra of Alaska, he sits in a lawn chair and throws tennis balls at Sam’s feet while he’s grilling in the backyard and reads TMZ aloud in a terrible Queens accent while they’re laying in bed at night.

Sam likes to mock John, because Sam likes to make John smile. He likes to keep his game unexpected, sometimes this means chirping John’s reps in the gym, questioning whether his squats would be granted “exceptional squat status” or just regular squat status and tweaking a nipple while he’s breathing in between sets. Sometimes it means tipping his baseball cap on an angle rapping badly with the radio in the car on the way to the rink.

The beauty of being in love with your oldest friend is that there’s nothing more fulfilling than making that person smile. 

But the truth is that it’s the half-smile John gets when they’re curled together in bed that Sam really loves, the smile that spreads across John’s face when he drapes an arm across his waist, says Sam’s name and weaves their legs together across cool sheets.

Sometimes Sam thinks that maybe, someday they’ll stop coming home to London every summer. That all roads won’t lead to the rooms in the houses they grew up in. But for now there’s something comforting about coming here, to the place where this all started, to the backyard rink that doesn’t exist in the summer and the basement where John kissed Sam for the very first time and the saggy couch that was the scene of a thousand handjobs disguised as video-game induced wrestling matches. The table where Sam admitted he was dating John and the garage where John admitted he was in love with Sam.

The summer is a flurry of working out and golf and old friends and cottaging and soul-sucking contract negotiations [for Sam] and bizarre events held on the field at Yankee Stadium [for John] and suddenly without warning it’s August 1st and they’re back on the ice 6 days a week and John’s getting ready for Olympic Orientation camp and Sam’s carefully trying to ignore the fact that he wasn’t invited and they’re both trying their hardest not to acknowledge their dwindling time together.

And then there’s the captain thing.

Somehow both the expected and the unexpected happen. 

John’s captaincy is announced before he’s even back in the Empire State, heralded from all corners and when he’s finally there for the official announcement he sends Sam a text with a picture of his new jersey and absolutely no commentary at all. That night they spend 20 minutes on the phone discussing the fact that they’re in their mid-twenties, with more money than either of them knows what to do with, and John has just been declared the prohibitive leader of the New York Islanders for the foreseeable future - but neither of them can remember for sure if they remembered to turn the propane off and lock the patio doors before they left London.

Sam’s captaincy is rumored for weeks before it becomes official. The internet explodes with it at the end of August and Sam starts to stay away from everything social media related and internet related and hockey related because his name is being mentioned just a little too often for him to be comfortable.

Halfway through camp he has a meeting with MacT and Dallas and they talk about Shawn’s belief in him and Shawn’s recommendation that he be the one to take the team to the next level and their belief in his leadership skills. They talk about him like he’s a man of the people, like he’s the guy who can take all the young guns and make them a team. Sam smiles a lot and when the meeting is over he walks out the door in a daze. 

Sam texts John a single C and with shaking hands calls his dad.

Two hours later as he’s walking down the hall to the room where the media is assembled for the formal announcement when his phone vibrates in his pocket. While he’s standing in the shadows waiting to be introduced he sneaks a peek at the message from John.

_Proud of you Samwise._

There is one short weekend between training camp and the season opener. Sam goes straight from practice to the airport and curses time zones and realignment and growing up all the way from Edmonton to JFK. 

They don’t leave the comfort of John’s bed except to pay for takeout during the thirty-some odd hours they have to spend together. The weight of their shiny new C’s linger, just outside the door, persistent as a shadow. Somewhere in the living room Sam’s phone has finally given up and vibrated itself to an early grave and John’s phone is in the pocket of his favorite jeans, thrown haphazardly over the back of the couch, turned off.

Sam will be back in New York in a little over 2 weeks. But he won’t be alone. For the first time he’ll bring the expectations of a city, the weight of a new contract and new responsibilities and a new reality that neither of them can truly believe is actualized.

John isn’t functionally any bigger than Sam, 2 inches and between 5 and 7 pounds isn’t much when you’re stretched together across a king-sized bed. But when Sam curls against John’s side, rests his head against his shoulder and drapes an arm tightly across his chest he feels a little like with just a little work he could crawl straight into John and be safe and happy forever.

“I’m scared,” Sam whispers into the dark, tucked tight against John’s side, the ever-present noise and light of New York bouncing against the walls and reflecting across the ceiling.

“Me too,” In the dark John can admit it.

The confessions hang in the air until John rolls them a little and tucks himself behind Sam, wrapping him in his summer-tan arms and sliding them both to sleep.

In the morning they’ll have coffee in bed and slow lazy morning sex before Sam flies the eight hours back to Edmonton. Between now and then he’ll hoard all the physical contact he possibly can, like a squirrel preparing for a long cold winter. He’ll drag his teeth down the center of John’s stomach and suck a mark tight against his hip. He’ll beg for more and faster and harder and welcome the teeth marks on his shoulder - a physical manifestation of a relationship that is about to be thirty-seven hours and three-quarters of a continent apart.

Before Sam leaves they’ll stand in John’s foyer, almost unwilling to do this again, unprepared as always to say goodbye. John will grip his shoulders and look into his eyes and tell him seriously, earnestly how much he loves him, that he believes in him, that he knows he’s going to be amazing. And Sam will slide his arms around John’s waist and rest his head against John’s collarbone and repeat all the words back to him.

But tonight, they won’t say anymore. They’ll press their bodies together until there’s no space between them and admit that they’re not ready to be grown-ups.

Sam wouldn’t classify his life as unexpected, exactly. Except for when it is.


End file.
